A Boiled Egg at the Edge of Knowing

I woke up again today...

and... eh?!

 

Thus begins my sermon.

Blessed be the ones who know everything,

and double-blessed the ones who proclaim it loudly,

for they provide an excellent example

of what not to become.

 

This is my agenda! they cry.

This is my view of things! they proclaim.

I knew this and that! (Mostly after it happened.)

I pretended to know this and that! (Even when my socks were inside out.)

 

Come not unto me

like thou art the fountain of all knowledge...

You come across like a badly balanced table...

wobbling with every certainty.

 

Let me sit with my boiled egg, friend.

Let me sprinkle my small salt,

for it is the only wisdom I claim to hold:

a boiled egg tastes better with a touch of salt.

 

Tomorrow is mist,

today is half-shadowed, half-sun.

I know nothing,

except that I must open the salt carefully or it will spill everywhere.

 

Socrates (who may or may not have had breakfast)

is said to have said:

the greatest wisdom is knowing nothing.

I have made peace with my confusion.

I have befriended the question marks that hover like gnats above my coffee.

 

And so when the Knowers come...

when the Discerners and Pronouncers roll up in their robes of Opinion,

I smile...

and think:

There goes another boiled egg, unsalted.

 

Blessed be the certainty of the uncertain,

Blessed be the holy bafflement of the morning,

Blessed be the salt...

Blessed be the fog...

Blessed be the boiled egg...

which has nothing to do with it…

and everything.

 

Amen.